


scarce resources

by santanico



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 07:47:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/859669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/santanico/pseuds/santanico
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abigail half-smiles and turns her palms over, squeezing Freddie’s hands. Freddie’s fingernails are perfectly manicured, her fingers clean and her knuckles pale. Abigail’s hands are still dirty, though not on the surface. Like there’s blood under her nails that she cannot get out; like there’s grit and grime stuck in her skin, a permanent tattoo and reminder of every crime she’s committed – and then of Freddie’s crimes too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	scarce resources

**Author's Note:**

> quickwrite: mentions of murder/torture, brief description of the chinton and freddie scene in 1x12, i believe, mention of removal of an apendage (ear), spoilers thru the finale. speculation fic. #abigailhobbslives

When Freddie Lounds opens the door to her apartment, everything she believes to know stutters.

The girl looks like Abigail Hobbs.

The girl is Abigail Hobbs.

“I need somewhere to stay.”

-

They eat at a local Wendy’s down the street from Freddie’s apartment. The car ride is awkward, the air around them stale and yet full of static. Abigail Hobbs says very little, her eyes trained ahead of her. She watches the road more intently than Freddie has since she was sixteen, and Abigail doesn’t respond to Freddie’s frequent glances. She doesn’t even acknowledge them.

“I’d just like a cheeseburger. And a Coke.” Abigail pauses as they enter the building, and Freddie wonders if she shouldn’t have just gone through the drive thru. But Abigail Hobbs looks different. Same face, same eyes, same scarf around her neck – yet, something is sincerely changed in the way she moves, the way she talks.

“You can go grab a seat,” Freddie says gently, and she hasn’t said much since Abigail appeared on her doorstep. “I’ll be right there.” She isn’t sure what to do, but Abigail listens without complaint and takes a two-person table in the corner of the restaurant. 

Freddie doesn’t get herself anything. Wendy’s vegetarian menu is incredibly slim. She only picked the restaurant because it was close and it seemed to fit.

Although, she really doesn’t have any idea of what it means to ‘fit’ anymore, as Abigail Hobbs certainly doesn’t fit into Freddie’s life in any way.

She sets the tray down in front of Abigail and takes the chair across from her. Abigail’s eyes glance over the wrapped burger and she reaches for it before hesitating and grabbing her straw again. She rips it open precisely, at the top, and then tugs the paper down carefully. She sets it down, still shaped like the straw, and then puts the straw in her drink. It’s meticulous and exact. She sips the Coke and then resumes opening her burger.

Freddie sits in tense silence. The restaurant is mostly quiet besides a couple of employees chatting at the front. A teenage boy is fiddling with his phone as he stands near a trash deposit. It’s already nine in the evening, and they’re not open that late.

She waits for Abigail to finish eating, and, as she’s sipping her Coke through the straw, considers what she should say.

“Abigail…”

“I’m not dead,” is the first thing that comes out of the girl’s mouth. She straightens up and looks more like herself, more color in her cheeks. But her eyes are still dense and tired. “I’ve been hiding. I had to hide.”

Freddie raises her eyebrows and leans back, waiting for more.

“I can’t…” Abigail pauses, frowning. Freddie is reminded of the young girl and how determined she had been to write a book. Now the newspapers say she was murdered, attacked by a man who had previously treated her well and promised to take care of her. “I can’t be back here. He will find me.”

“Will Graham?”

A smile sneaks onto Abigail’s face. “That’s who he says would hurt me. That’s who he says would kill me. Will scared me, from time to time, but…I never believed that he could…” She suddenly grabs her tray and walks over to the trash deposit. The boy who was there when Freddie last looked is gone, and she watches curiously as Abigail shakes the tray off into the garbage. Her Coke is still on the table, however, only half consumed.

Abigail slides into the seat. “It probably isn’t even safe here.”

“Life isn’t a conspiracy theory, Abigail. You don’t have to be afraid.”

Abigail smiles again. “You don’t remember when you had to watch a man be cut open while he was still awake? How you couldn’t do anything as his organs were removed? Chinton wasn’t a good man…and you…aren’t a good woman. But neither of you deserved that, don’t you think?”

“And you, Abigail?” Freddie speaks quietly, and doesn’t hesitate. She isn’t afraid of Abigail Hobbs. “What are you?”

“I’m supposed to be gone. To have faded into obscurity…they won’t find my body and they won’t need to, because Will Graham’s nailed already scratched my skin, they found my ear through him. Right? And I already look like so many other girls. Brown hair, blue eyes, white. I fit right in. Just supposed to hide, be quiet for the rest of my life. Wait for him to find me.”

“Who, Abigail?”

“I can’t go around telling you that. It would only put me further at risk. And it would make you an accessory, unless you told on me. You’re not gonna tell, are you?”

Freddie blinks. Her gut tells her to run – to run right now. But if she ran, Abigail could disappear again. And this girl has clearly snuck her way past so many people, proven herself stronger and better.

A survivalist, through and through.

And Freddie admires that.

“Abigail…” She reaches out, gently placing her hands over the girl’s. She wants to say something else, something important. But all that comes out is “Come home with me,” and her voice shatters in the last half of the barely constructed sentence.

Abigail half-smiles and turns her palms over, squeezing Freddie’s hands. Freddie’s fingernails are perfectly manicured, her fingers clean and her knuckles pale. Abigail’s hands are still dirty, though not on the surface. Like there’s blood under her nails that she cannot get out; like there’s grit and grime stuck in her skin, a permanent tattoo and reminder of every crime she’s committed – and then of Freddie’s crimes too.

Abigail follows her out the door, and it’s only when they get in the car and Abigail pushes her hair back that Freddie sees the bandaged hole where an ear used to be.

She’s just glad that it’s been bandaged.


End file.
